Grease is the word in St Louis.

It's been a pretty busy summer for us. For the first time since we moved from Los Angeles, I worked during the summer. I really loved working through the summer for several reasons. But above all else, I love that it gave the boys an opportunity to be independent.

The down side of working, meant less time with my boys. So when discussing what to do on the last days before school starts, we decided to hit the road. We only had 3 days to do this, since I had to be back at work early Monday morning, so we had a 5am wake up call. I struggled with insomnia all week, so that 5am wake up was pretty rough, but I did it. Not surprisingly, the kids jumped up and were ready to go in no time. They love weekend getaways!

St Louis is only a few hours away, and we had no traffic.

Our first stop was to visit the St Louis Zoo. Entrance to the zoo is free, but for $12 per person, you get tickets to the stingray exhibit, train, 3D motion simulator, and a few other things. If you plan on doing at least 3 things from their list of attractions with a charge, then get the $12 pass. We did, and it was worth it. If you are in doubt, speak to someone at the entrance. The employee I spoke to was pretty helpful.

Our first stop was the stingray exhibit. When we went on our Disney Cruise, we were able to get in the ocean and feed some stingrays. The kids got a kick out of it, so we thought we would give this exhibit a try.

We got to pet some stingrays, and a hammerhead shark.

There was someone dressed as a shark, who told us how we needed to put our hand in the water and be perfectly still. Once we did that, the stingrays and shark came right under our hands. The kids really enjoyed this.

After that, we headed over to the gorilla exhibit. That area was pretty packed with people, but I got a shot of one gorilla swinging around.

And some wandering peacocks. 

The zoo is pretty big, but has an easy layout to follow. We walked from animal to animal.

We even made a stop at the 3D motion simulator. There was just a short wait, but it was starting to get pretty humid. Noah was melting.

The ride was fun, though. After that, we took a little lunch break. The food wasn't cheap. $48 for fast food. But it was tasty. 

How humid was it, you ask? Even the animals were just wilting.

We decided to take the train to the other side of the zoo. Noah wanted to see the hyena's.

Ah. That's better.

Too hot for a bear to be outside.

And finally, a sleeping hyena!

We were pretty tired after that. Even though it was  only in the mid 80's, it was extremely humid. That really took the energy out of us. So we headed back to our hotel, the Courtyard Marriott. Ahhhh. At least, a bed and some a/c!

After a bit of rest, the boys decided they wanted to go for a swim. The pool was small, but there were only a couple of people in it.

Just floating around.

After swimming, Nik wanted to go to Applebee's for dinner. Reason why, he was thinking about his old teacher and para's at his former middle school.  What a sweet kid!

Following dinner, we headed over to The Muny. I had purchased tickets for a performance of Grease. 

We didn't have our beloved orchestra seats, but that's what happens when you buy tickets only 2 days before the show. The seats weren't bad though. And I paid $135 for all 4 tickets, which is what we would normally pay for one seat.

This was an outdoor venue. It's actually the oldest outdoor theater in the country. We had never been to an outdoor theater, so were very curious to see how things went.

Our review of Grease? It was pretty entertaining. Nik really seemed to love it. I think he appreciated the humor more. Noah also enjoyed it, but I have to say that the outdoor setting really distracted him. Even though the sound was great, it was hard for him not to be distracted by airplanes flying over, or some of the rude people who sat around us. And by rude, I mean people not controlling their children, people whipping out their ipads and cell phones, and holding them up to take pictures, people singing along with the cast, etc. If I had made more money for these seats, I probably would have been pretty angry. And I will say that if we ever do go to an outdoor theater again, it will definitely be cheap seats. No use paying top dollar with this type of behavior. I think people were just too relaxed in an outdoor venue, and totally forgot about proper theater etiquette. 

Let me move on to the second day of the trip. On the second day, we went to City Museum, which I have already wrote about. Following the museum, we went back to the hotel so I could recover. Alex and the boys went swimming. Then we decided to end the day by going to the movies to see the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. One of my summer camp students raved about White Castle, and told me that I must visit one while in St Louis. So, we decided to see what they big deal was. There was one located about 10 minutes from the hotel. When we got there, we had an urge to just move on. I wish we would have listened to that urge.

When we walked inside, the place was totally empty, and we were hit with a smell that was most unpleasant. I have since found out that is the classic White Castle smell. Yuck! Noah kept asking what the smell was. 

We order an assortment of white castle burgers, and Nik ordered some chicken wings.

Yuck! Nik was the only one who ate his food. He said it was fine. The rest of us were disgusted, and left our food alone.

Fortunately, the AMC had a full restaurant, and we were able to order a meal for Noah to eat. 

And they handed out Ninja Turtle masks to AMC stubs members!

The kids enjoyed the movie, but there was a very annoying kid in the theater, or I should say annoying parent. A kid continued to scream for the first part of the movie. Why they didn't take him out, I have no idea. But thankfully, about 30 minutes later, the kid was removed. 

The next day, we headed home. We had so much fun in St Louis. We will be back! Phantom of The Opera will be there in March, and there is a Comic Con in May. We will have to come back for at least one of those.

OMG I'm going to die in this Museum. City Museum, St Louis

We just returned from a weekend in St Louis. I had a few different things that I had planned for us. A friend of mine gave lots of helpful tips (and warnings) to help me figure out what to do. Shout out to Minnie for her tips, and for inspiring me with the title of this blog entry.

I'm going out of order of this trip, and starting the blog off with the second day of our trip. The events of that day are pretty fresh in my mind. And truth be told, I'm still feeling the pain. So I thought I would write about it while everything is still vivid in my mind.

I had a couple of sleepless nights prior to this trip, so that could have contributed to my total lack of common sense this day. In any event, we made our way to City Museum. How do I describe this museum? It's so hard to put into words. Think of a large building, filled with repurposed industrial objects. Picture a 10 story high playhouse for adults. It's a combination fun house, and architectural marvel. Well, just look at the pictures and you will get an idea of what I mean.

Here are a couple of things you need to know about this place. This museum involves climbing, crawling, and sliding. I knew this ahead of time, and made sure that we came with knee pads. We were glad that we had them. So if you want to tackle this museum, head to a sporting goods store and buy some cheap knee pads. You're welcome! Second thing to keep in mind, is that you need to be prepared for a workout. You need to stick together, or be comfortable with the fact that you will get separated from your family, never to be seen again. Ok, that part is a bit dramatic, but you really can get lost in this place. I put the kids in bright shirts so I could spot them from a distance. This is another thing I recommend. This place gets packed, so the bright shirts made your family easier to spot in the crowd.

Let me start out by admitting this. I'm out of shape. And I had it in my head that I would not let that fact ruin my family's good time on this day. So we purchased our tickets ($12 each), slapped on the knee pads, and made our way into this insane, amazing museum.

So the first floor of the museum is known as the Enchanted Caves. Here we are entering the caves. It's pretty dark in the caves, so I had to use flash.

Here's what it looks like with no flash.

At one point, I noticed a hole in the ceiling of the cave. There were some cool spiral staircases leading up to the 10th floor. Ok, it was something more than a staircase, but I'll explain in a minute.

We came upon something that resembled a spiral staircase. Staircase really isn't the right word to describe it, but here is what I'm referring to.

Climbing, climbing, climbing.

Notice that Nik is on his knees. Yeah, knee pads are essential in this place.

Now, we didn't realize it at the time, but that wire staircase took you straight to the 5th floor. It was pretty dark, so reading signs was a challenge. Not that they had signs everywhere, mind you. 

We came to a hole on the floor, and it was obvious that it was a slide. Here is what pretty much every slide entrance looked like. You often had no idea what you were getting in to until you were on your way down.

What kind of a lunatic would go down this slide?

So Alex and I created a strategy. He would go down first, followed by Nik, Noah, and me as the caboose. Alex went down. I helped Nik onto the slide and off he went. Noah sat down, and I gave him a little push. Everything went well. So I sat down. There were 2 kids behind me, so I felt a little pressure to hurry down. But as soon as I sat down, I had that unsettling feeling. I'm not the most graceful person. Ok, I'll just say it. I'm clumsy. I trip, fall down stairs, bump myself, quite a bit. So it was against my better judgement to push myself down this slide. But I did not want to disappoint my family.

So I gave myself a little push. I made the first spiral, and immediately lost control. I tried to use my right hand to grab on to one of the bars that you can see on the right part of the picture above. Those bars went all the way down the slide. At least I think they did. Anyway, I tried to get myself into the right position, but my hand bounced right off the bar, and I immediately spun around. I spun into a sideways position, and probably went down like that for a few more spirals, spinning uncontrollably, with my head rolling up the side of the slide. Have you ever played with marbles? You know those spiral slides that you can build for marbles. Well, eliminate the marble, and replace it with a middle aged, overweight woman, and you get the idea. I felt a pull on my neck right away, and quickly realized that I could break my neck at any second. I kept going down, down, down, until the bowling ball that is Sherri, thankfully spun around again, this time going head first down the slide. Then the next moment of panic hit me, when I realized that I had no idea how this slide ended. Was I going to go head first into a wall? 

There was no stopping me. I tried to claw at something to stop myself, but there was no way to stop. At some point, a shoe went flying off. I heard someone gasp as I went flying by. Finally, thankfully, I came to a stop at the bottom of the slide. I popped out of the dark hole, head first like some 5ft tall, one hundred and blah blah blah pound breech middle aged baby. Alex came running up, along with someone else, who kept asking if I was ok. I didn't know it at the time, but an employee must have saw me on one of the levels of the slide, and came running to see if I was ok. 

I was in pain, but was so scared that I would get barreled into by the next person coming down the slide. I jumped up and told everyone that I was ok. I just wanted to get out. So how high up was that slide? Five floors! Here is a view of the spiral slides from the bottom looking up. The black slide is the 10 floor slide. One of the other slides is the one I went barreling down like a bat out of hell. I feel like I need an I Survived City Museum shirt.

Now, I'm not going to sugar coat this. I was in pain. And Noah was pretty upset. I knew a trip to the emergency room could push him over the edge. I really felt like I probably just had sprains and contusions, so I made the decision to keep moving through the museum. You may call my decision insane. I call it a mom wanting not to ruin a good time. That's how I roll. Ha! Get it. Roll! Ok, so we just kept on moving, ever so slowly. Being the dedicated photography nut, I took a picture of the family, shortly after I tumbled. And I asked Alex to take a picture of the kids and I. Yes, they are blurry. I just went flying uncontrollably down a 5 story slide. The camera got knocked around a bit, since it was around my neck. I must have messed up some of my settings in the process.

Noah was still upset, so we just kept trying to push ahead, finding things to distract him. This place was loaded with little tunnels. We did not crawl in this one, but I did see someone crawling out of it.

We came upon something that reminded me of a tree house. Alex and the kids climbed the spiral staircase to see where they led, and I waited at the bottom.

Spiral staircase to nowhere.

I waited until suddenly, Noah popped out of a square hole in the wall. I have no idea how Noah got inside. There must have been an entrance somewhere. That is the beauty, or horror, of this place. You can enter a cave or tunnel, and pop out someplace totally different.

At this point, Noah was still upset, so we decided to sit down and take a break. We bought a couple of sodas and popcorn for $6, and took a seat. I kept hearing things under the bench, but just assumed that it was noise from downstairs. Wrong! Apparently, a tunnel led people under our bench.

While we were sitting, I noticed that I had a little gash in my hand. I tumbled down the slide, and escaped with a scratch.

It was nice to just sit for a moment, but boy was I feeling aches and pains all over. That didn't stop me from smiling. 

After our little break, we wanted to do more exploring. There were some cool little chairs that they kids played on. They just kind of rolled around in a circle. 

We ran into an old friend. Love me some Bob's Big Boy!

At this point, we were on the 4th floor. It was such a sight for the eyes. Just look at this place! Your eyes are not deceiving you. There are people crawling through a giant slinky.

The 4th floor definitely had a funhouse vibe to it. We walked through one area that had a button to press, where you could see electricity shooting up. The kids liked it.

And there was a skate park, without the skates.

This is what I was feeling like at the moment.

There were some old pinball machines and video games.

And giant underwear. 

Manny, Moe, and. Jack! 

Pacman!

And on to more climbing. We decided to head outside to what they call MonstroCity.

At this point, I did not participate in the climbing. I didn't want to hurt myself further, so just walked around and took photos when I spotted the kids.

I also stood in amazement at some of the structures that people were climbing.  

The kids followed a spiral staircase, walked over a bridge, and ended up in a huge ball pit.

They really loved the ball pit! Eventually, we got them to crawl out. 

We climbed to the 2nd level of MonstroCity and did more exploring.

I have no idea how you would get down this without hurting yourself.

Now this is the slide that I should have gone down. 

And another spiral slide.

Hey, how did they get in there?

Nik and Noah waving to me from a window.

A very painful looking slide! 

The kids went down a slide, and Noah started to lose control going down. I admit that the helicopter propeller started to spin on my head, and I swooped in and said NO MORE SLIDES. 

Just look at this crazy place! 

At this point, Noah was drenched in sweat, so we decided to go back inside and cool off. We walked through the enchanted caves again. A little girl approached me and said that she was lost. I ended up helping her find her mom, but lost Alex and the boys in the process. Before long, I spotted them. 

After a while, I told them to go explore, and I would meet them in the lobby. Bye, boys! 

So I sat down on a bench and waited. At one point, I could hear them calling me. I kept looking around, and eventually spotted them up on the ceiling. 

How did my men get way up there?

Eventually, they found their way out. They were all drenched in sweat, and very tired, so we decided to call it a day. We were all so tired, and I was in pain, so we decided not to have a sit down meal and opted to go through the drive thru, and stopped at CVS for some Motrin for me. 

Exhausted, but happy!

So here is my review of City Museum. What an amazingly crazy, awe inspiring place. I can't tell you how many times we looked at each other and said "this place is crazy", or "how the hell are people crawling through that". It really was an amazing place. If you are ever in St Louis, or willing to make a weekend trip, give the City Museum a try. You won't be sorry. Unless you are me, then you will be a tiny bit sorry. Ok, I"m not sorry. It was totally worth it! This really is thriving with autism, gang.

And yes, I am ok. According to my doctor, I have contusions and should feel better in a week.